WHITE PAPER MARCH How to Leverage Enablement Services to Boost Your Service Provider Business

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER MARCH 2015 How to Leverage Enablement Services to Boost Your Service Provider Business

2 2 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Table of Contents Introduction: Enablement Services Overview 3 Why Enablement Services Are So Important 4 Top Challenges Enablement Services Can Address 5 Enablement Services: An Overview of the Options 6 How to Leverage Enablement Services to Maximum Benefit 7 Conclusion 10 About Enablement Services From CA Technologies 10 About CA Technologies for Service Providers 10 About This Document: Developed by the CA Service Provider Center of Excellence 11

3 3 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Executive Summary No matter the business, the right assistance at the right time can be invaluable, and service providers are certainly no exception. As service provider leaders look to find ways to strengthen their organizations and accelerate growth, enablement services from external providers can deliver great value. This paper offers a comprehensive look at enablement services, delivering insights into why these services can be so vital, as well as practical guidance for boosting your organization s odds of success when embarking on an enablement services engagement. Introduction: Enablement Services Overview No matter the business, the right assistance at the right time can be invaluable, and service providers are certainly no exception. Operating in highly dynamic technical and business environments, service provider executives have to contend with pressing and unique demands and can often benefit from the perspective or expertise of external advisors. In recent years, enablement services have grown increasingly common as a way for service providers to get the timely, targeted services and resources that can help speed their growth. Enablement services are provided by external individuals and organizations that can help provide expertise, objective assessments of the provider s strengths and weaknesses and ultimately offer a different perspective that can help improve planning and decision making. Enablement services have the potential to help propel the growth and success of virtually any service provider organization. Whether it s an early stage company looking for assistance with making the transition from VAR to managed services, or a global service provider looking to streamline operations, there are enablement services available that can help. Here are some common areas of engagement: Business strategy and roadmap definition Service catalog development New service definition and launch Service delivery optimization Customer onboarding process refinement Go-to-market strategy Sales and marketing Staff recruiting and development Within each of these categories, the nature of engagements can vary substantially. For example, in sales and marketing, a more tactical project can be focused on gaining assistance with a specific piece of collateral, while a more strategic engagement may be comprised of competitive analysis and assistance with sales training in order to more effectively position offerings. Tactical engagements may only span a few days or weeks, while more strategic engagements can span months or years.

4 4 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Making the best decisions possible at these points is vital: service providers don t have the luxury of second or third chances. Why Enablement Services Are So Important Over the course of a service provider business history, there can be a number of critical inflection points, junctures at which the prospects of the business are substantially and irrevocably altered. These points can occur when a large new account is signed, when an expansion plan is implemented, when a decision is made to deliver a new service and so on. Particularly early on, strategic decisions can have significant and long-lasting effect on the organization s trajectory. Making the best decisions possible at these points is vital: service providers don t have the luxury of second or third chances. Having the right partner at these important junctures can be invaluable, which is where enablement services come in. These services can help to guide or refine direction, decisions and execution, and these enhancements can ultimately make a big difference in the rate and scope of an organization s growth. The value of enablement services can vary substantially from business to business; however, there are some common themes to the advantages an enablement services engagement can deliver: Keep pace. The service provider market, and the business and technological environment in which these businesses operate, continue to evolve more quickly, which makes it increasingly difficult for service provider staff to keep up with the latest advancements and state-of-the-art approaches. For example, unless a technical administrator can focus on a specific technological arena, their expertise in any one area may grow stale. Bringing in an external resource that s focused on a particular area can help a service provider stay on top of these changes. Fill gaps in expertise. Enablement services represent an opportunity for a service provider to practically fill gaps in resources or expertise, or to gain perspectives from outside the service provider segment. Especially early on, only so much expertise exists within the organization. There will be expertise gaps and blind spots. If senior executives have a technologically focused background, they may need help on the business strategy side. If an organization is planning to deliver a new service, staff may benefit from additional expertise related to the targeted technology or industry. Strategic perspective. As the pace of the business picks up, it s all too common for management to be consumed with day-to-day demands and neglect to step back and do critical efforts like strategic planning and tracking progress against defined objectives. An enablement service provider can deliver strategic insight, assisting with the pursuit of long-term strategies and positioning the business to scale and maximize profit. Foster collaboration and engagement. Like any other organization, service provider businesses will thrive when they operate within a rich ecosystem of talent and knowledge sharing. The more leadership engages with others outside the organization, both to solicit and to offer help, the more the organization as a whole can benefit. Leverage objectivity. In some cases, simply gaining the perspective of an outsider, someone who s not enmeshed in the history and culture of the organization, can be very helpful. An external contact can provide objectivity, which can be invaluable in questioning assumptions, validating decision making, identifying oversights and so on.

5 5 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Top Challenges Enablement Services Can Address Enablement services can help organizations address both strategic and operational challenges. The following sections offer some examples within each of these categories. An enablement service provider can work with the management team to better define what they want to accomplish and where they want to go and then outline the steps required to get there. Strategic challenges Following are a few examples of common strategic challenges service providers face and an overview of how enablement services can help: Leadership struggles. Many service provider businesses are led by multiple owners. Quite often, these individuals will have different backgrounds, for example, with one partner coming up through engineering, and the other having a sales background. Particularly initially, these differing backgrounds can augment one another. However, over time it can also pose challenges, especially as leaders want to take the next step in terms of growth and maturity. Each owner may have different goals and approaches, which can create a number of issues. Enablement services can be of tremendous assistance in this area, helping the team to improve teamwork and align on a unified vision. Strategic misalignment. Once service providers have built a solid team and foundation, accelerating growth often requires making corrections or refinements in direction. For example, in many early-stage businesses, executives focus on revenue growth, not profitability. One problem that arises as a result is that, when they want to expand or launch services, they lack the resources required. Also, an organization s initiatives may not truly align with their core business objectives. An enablement service provider can work with the management team to better define what they want to accomplish and where they want to go and then outline the steps required to get there. Lack of clarity. Sometimes, leadership may execute a change in direction without having a clearly articulated justification for doing so. For example, an executive with a VAR may decide that, in order to reach the organization s revenue goals, the team needs to start delivering managed services, without having a clear understanding of what services to deliver and what s involved. Alternatively, an organization may achieve some initial goals, and leadership may be struggling with determining where the business should go next. In other cases, the organization may lack a clearly defined target market or be focusing on markets that aren t well aligned with existing offerings. Enablement services can help address these challenges, enabling leadership teams to gain a clearer vision, so they can focus efforts, staff and resources accordingly. Once an organization overcomes these types of challenges and is running smoothly, enablement services can also be employed to help refine processes, streamline operations, speed scalability, enhance profitability and other strategic initiatives. Operational challenges Enablement services can also help organizations address a range of operational challenges: Insufficient or ineffective marketing. Enablement service providers can assist with the analysis of objectives and prior approaches in order to formulate strategies for improving effectiveness. In addition, they can help to augment staff in order to complete specific deliverables.

6 6 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Lack of managed services sales experience. Effectively selling managed services requires a specific set of skills and experience. If a service provider s sales team lacks the background required, an enablement service can be leveraged that can help deliver the training to build internal expertise, and to assist with recruitment efforts in order to add qualified talent. If this lack of experience translates to missed SLAs or other issues with customers, the consequences can be grave. Lack of sales processes and tools. Enablement service providers can work with organizations to develop the processes and tools that foster sales representative productivity. Lack of operational process. As service providers look to scale, lack of operational processes becomes an increasingly significant impediment. Enablement services engagements can assist with assessing existing workflows and developing and documenting processes that help boost quality and productivity. Ineffective organizational structure. Enablement service providers can leverage industry expertise in order to evaluate existing hierarchies and infrastructures and establish near-term and longer-term changes that can improve staff productivity and efficiency. Lack of execution experience. Especially for early stage service providers, lack of execution experience among many team members is common. However, if this lack of experience translates to missed SLAs or other issues with customers, the consequences can be grave. Enablement services offer organizations an opportunity to augment a lack of execution expertise internally, so providers can shore up critical service delivery processes. Enablement Services: An Overview of the Options When service provider executives decide to leverage enablement services, they have many options to consider. First, they can choose from a range of different organizations: Vendors. Many vendors that sell into the managed services market now offer some form of enablement services. Trade organizations. Over the years, many trade organizations have sprung up in the managed services segment, and these organizations increasingly offer enablement services as part of their offerings. Media. Websites and publications that serve the managed services market have also started offering enablement services. Peers. Through a range of different forums, both formal and informal, service providers can learn directly from their peers, which is one of the most effective enablement approaches. By engaging with their peers, service providers can hear directly from others who ve faced the same challenges and made the same mistakes, experiences that can provide invaluable lessons. Coaching and consulting firms. Today, there are a range of coaching and consulting firms that are focused on the service provider segment. There are both full service coaching firms that offer the gamut of enablement services as well as firms and consultants that are focused on specific areas, such as sales, finance or operations. Mergers and acquisition specialists. For many service providers, the ultimate end goal is an acquisition or merger with a larger service provider. Mergers and acquisition specialists focus on this area, offering the enablement services that can best prepare an organization to be a strong acquisition candidate and facilitating the process of brokering deals.

7 7 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com In addition, there are many different types of enablement services: One to one. This is typically consulting or coaching that is customized for a specific service provider. In the end, if the strategic direction of the business is off, no amount of internal optimization will net the outcomes desired. One to few. This category includes educational workshops, classroom sessions and boot camps that offer pre-packaged educational materials to representatives from a number of organizations. Peer groups. This can include networking groups and trade association meetings. One to many. These services can include webinars, templates, workbooks, portals and a range of other pre-packaged resources that can assist service provider personnel. How to Leverage Enablement Services to Maximum Benefit Guiding principles As executives consider whether, when and how to engage with enablement services, they should factor in the following principles: Waiting won t help. Don t get stuck in analysis paralysis or put off the inevitable. If the organization is contending with a challenge or problem, it is important to engage and get help sooner rather than later. In pretty much every instance, delays will only exacerbate the challenges. Start with the end goal. Before getting into an engagement, it is vital to start with a clear understanding of where you want to end up. Establish a clear definition of what a successful engagement will mean for your business and work with the enablement service provider to chart a path to reach that outcome. Start strategic. In the end, if the strategic direction of the business is off, no amount of internal optimization will net the outcomes desired. That s why it s important to start with strategy, and ensure the organization has a well defined, well conceived direction and only then move to focus on internal optimization efforts. Align your needs with the provider. As outlined earlier, there are many organizations that offer enablement services and a range of provider types, and each will provide different areas of focus and expertise. To the fullest extent possible, align your specific needs with the strengths of a qualified enablement service provider. Don t boil the ocean. Make sure you start with clear, achievable objectives. Where to start: Finding qualified providers To find the optimal enablement provider, it s often most efficient to start with your network. Talking to your peers can be a great way to kick off the process. Find out which firms or vendors your colleagues have used and what their experiences were like. You can also look to existing analysts, consultants or other trusted advisors who may have connections at relevant organizations. Finally, if you re aware of businesses that are operating in similar market segments or regions, you may be able to get useful recommendations from them as well.

8 8 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Try to make sure you find the provider that doesn t just tout the required services, but truly has the people and know-how to deliver. Vetting and selecting prospective providers Even if enablement services are offered free of charge, it is important to understand that virtually any engagement with an enablement provider takes a significant investment including in staff time and focus so it s important to invest these resources wisely and judiciously. Toward that end, it s important to base the decision on value versus cost and the degree of alignment with your requirements and goals. As much as possible, try to do a strong evaluation of the provider s: Staff. It is important to do an up-front assessment of staff, reviewing biographies and determining whether they have a proven track record of success. Clients. Review available testimonials and success stories and speak to references. Resources. Many organizations will provide resources, such as recorded webinars, white papers and blog posts. Review the resources available so you can determine whether they are more advanced or basic, and ultimately whether they map to the level of advice you require. Also, look at the objectivity of the advice given. Is the advice clearly self-serving or truly helpful? Focus and expertise. As outlined earlier, it s important to ensure your needs are aligned with a provider s focus and strengths. Toward that end, look at the provider s areas of expertise, not only in terms of their service promotions, but in terms of customer testimonials, staff experience and so on, so you can determine whether they truly have the expertise and track record required. Try to make sure you find the provider that doesn t just tout the required services, but truly has the people and know-how to deliver. Solution. Take a hard look at the organization s solution and approach. Describe your objectives and challenges and see what they respond with. Do they provide a cookie-cutter, formulaic response, or do they take the time to truly understand your organization and requirements, and develop a solution that s aligned with those parameters? Just as with managed services, it s important that enablement service providers understand client requirements and deliver solutions that are aligned with those requirements. Culture. When speaking with the provider s staff and clients, try to establish what their culture is like, and determine whether it s a fit. Managing engagements Once you ve made the decision to move forward with enablement services, the following are a few keys to maximizing the chances of a successful engagement: Start small. When working with a provider for the first time, endeavor to start with a preliminary engagement that offers a fast way to try the provider and vet their people and processes, before signing on for a larger engagement. This means the project should have a discrete timeframe and specific outcomes. Through these initial engagements, you should be able to assess the provider s knowledge, expertise and commitment and ultimately establish trust. In addition, you can assess the organization s culture and working styles and ascertain whether there s a good fit. Collaborate. The most successful partnerships will be based on effective collaboration. The enablement service provider should be flexible in developing a mutually agreeable engagement scope and timeline. Also, as much as possible, the vendor should accommodate the need to pause the project if the client wants to do so for any reason. Likewise, as a client, your team should be open to consultation. Look to provide background and let the provider help define the problem and course of action, rather than trying to spell it out for them.

9 9 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com Clearly define services and deliverables. As much as possible, look to establish clear definitions of the services and deliverables to be provided. The more these aspects are left vague or uncertain, the more margins there are for misunderstandings, dissatisfaction and inadequate results. It s important to establish success metrics and track them, both early and often. Involve the right team members. Generally, at least during the initial phase of the engagement, it is important to involve top-level management. It is vital to get the perspectives of senior leadership on issues and definitions of success. Subsequently, depending on the nature of engagement, a range of other team members may need to get involved. Provide full disclosure. While it can be a natural instinct to want to keep guarded with sensitive financial information or internal challenges when working with an external vendor, it s important to fully disclose the information. Ultimately, you can t get great services if you re secretive about key data and issues. For the enablement service provider, it s important to gain a complete understanding of the business. Without that understanding, they are much more likely to provide lower quality or even inaccurate guidance. Further, you and the vendor can move much faster when you re not trying to withhold specific information. Be sure to do a non-disclosure agreement up front, then provide solid documentation and the required background, so you can set the stage for a fruitful engagement. How to gauge your return It s important to establish success metrics and track them, both early and often. For virtually any engagement, the metric that really matters is profit and revenue. Did the engagement move the needle in the right direction? However, these financial metrics can take some time to be realized, so it s important to establish additional interim metrics and criteria for assessing the value and success of a relationship, and whether the effort is headed in the right direction. Here are a few elements to consider: Commitments met. When talking with the provider s representatives, listen carefully to verify if they are meeting commitments, even those pertaining to small portions of a larger deliverable, along the way. If small deliverables are slipping, it can often be a sign of trouble with the larger project and the vendor. Customer metrics. Depending on the nature of the engagement, changing client sentiment or metrics can provide strong evidence of success. To gauge progress in this area, you can solicit client feedback, track acquisition rates or monitor churn rates. Staff sentiment. Follow up with staff members that are closely engaged in the process. Do they feel the engagement is propelling the business forward or presenting a distraction that s offering little value? Website metrics. Activity on your corporate website can be a great litmus test for the efficacy of a range of marketing programs and deliverables. In some cases, tracking overall statistics, such as monthly site visitors, can provide a useful gauge. In other cases, campaigns can point respondents to specific URLs, and traffic to those pages can be tracked to assess the success of those specific programs. Track progress and be vigilant of the time being invested and the value being received. If the relationship is yielding dividends and value, you can often stay with the vendor over the long term. However, when that s not the case, it s important to stop immediately and make a change.

10 10 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES ca.com The Center of Excellence team can help you more fully leverage your technologies and investments, optimize your operations, enhance your go-tomarket capabilities and scale intelligently. Conclusion Enablement services provide great potential for helping service providers contend with a range of challenges and can be instrumental in improving the provider s long-term prospects. However, the benefits of any enablement service are not a sure thing. By taking the time to vet prospective providers and carefully managing project scope and progress, service providers can maximize the benefits they realize from their engagements. About Enablement Services From CA Technologies Today, through its CA Service Provider Center of Excellence, CA Technologies delivers an extensive range of enablement services. Available to all of its service provider partners, enablement services from CA Technologies can help businesses boost their efficiency and maturity. If you re a CA Technologies partner, the Center of Excellence team can help you more fully leverage your technologies and investments, optimize your operations, enhance your go-to-market capabilities and scale intelligently. The Center of Excellence team provides assistance in the following ways: Strategic consulting. The Center of Excellence team is comprised of experts in service provider management, operations, technologies, marketing and more. Through a range of consulting engagements, these experts conduct workshops, training and in-depth advisory services that are tailored to the needs and objectives of each specific business. Resources and tools. To provide partners with easy access to the wealth of assets it has created, the Center of Excellence team has developed the Service Provider Playbook. The playbook contains a rich set of business enablement resources, including white papers, webcasts, industry reports, strategy briefs and presentations. In addition, the Center of Excellence offers a range of other resources that streamline the monetization of services, including sales and marketing guides and customizable marketing collateral and presentations. Services. The Center of Excellence team is available to assist partners with a range of projects and initiatives, including go-to-market planning, collateral development, sales training and service offering definition. About CA Technologies for Service Providers In the application economy, successful service providers will have one thing in common: speed. Delivering services that help customers innovate their applications faster and getting those services to market quickly now represent critical competitive mandates. Today, service providers around the world are turning to CA Technologies because we help them get faster. CA equips service providers with a scalable service delivery platform that fuels operational optimization, complete solutions that power services at every stage of the application lifecycle and extensive enablement services that can accelerate all phases of your business execution.

11 11 WHITE PAPER: HOW TO LEVERAGE ENABLEMENT SERVICES About This Document: Developed by the CA Service Provider Center of Excellence This document has been written by the CA Service Provider Center of Excellence team and is intended to provide our service provider partners with the guidance they need to address some of their most pressing challenges. Our team has rich expertise in service provider businesses, strategic consulting, technical deployments, sales and marketing. Our documents are informed by the Center of Excellence team s extensive experience over the past ten years in helping build successful service provider businesses and by interviews with some of our most successful service provider partners. This document is provided for informational purposes only and on an as-is basis. The guidance and results described herein are based on the unique experiences of our staff and partners, and may not be applicable to all organizations. For more information, visit the service provider page at ca.com. Connect with CA Technologies at ca.com CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) creates software that fuels transformation for companies and enables them to seize the opportunities of the application economy. Software is at the heart of every business, in every industry. From planning to development to management and security, CA is working with companies worldwide to change the way we live, transact and communicate across mobile, private and public cloud, distributed and mainframe environments. Learn more at ca.com. Copyright 2015 CA. All rights reserved. This document is for your informational purposes only, and does not form any type of warranty. CS _0315